Hearty Baked Oatmeal – Great way to start to the day

It’s not quite spring yet, so it’s OK to talk about how cozy and warm this oatmeal picture and recipe make us feel. Challenger AnskySue has it right, oatmeal is one of the best foods to start out your day. A lot of wholesome and tasty ingredients in there!

Thanks to my weekly newsletter from the American Institute for Cancer Research for this great recipe for Hearty Baked Oatmeal. I was up early at 6 am to get it into the oven while I got ready for work. It was so good – I can see this becoming a weekly tradition. It tasted more like a dessert than breakfast and who wouldn’t be a fan of that? The nuts, raisins and apricots gave it some texture and the oatmeal was simply the best. I added a teaspoon or so of cinnamon which was not the in the recipe and I used fat free milk so hopefully I saved a gram of saturated fat (out of the 2 in the recipe). And AICR says it’s easy to reheat so I am already looking forward to finishing up the leftovers tomorrow morning too!

Baked Oatmeal

• 1 3/4 cups low-fat (1 per cent) milk
• 2 tsp. unsalted butter
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/4 cup dried apricots
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 3 Tbsp. lightly packed brown sugar, divided
• 1/2 Golden Delicious apple, peeled and cored
• 3 Tbsp. chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In 2-quart microwaveable, oven proof casserole, heat milk and butter until milk steams, about 1-2 minutes. Mix in salt and oats and set aside.

Chop apricots. Mix apricots, raisins and 1 Tbsp. of the sugar into oats. Shred apple into oats and mix to combine.

Bake oats, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Stir, then top with remaining sugar and nuts. Bake 15 minutes longer, or until oats are chewy. Divide oatmeal among four bowls. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 Servings. Per serving: 280 calories, 8 g total fat (2 g saturated fat), 45 g carbohydrate, 9 g protein, 4 g dietary fiber, 280 mg sodium.

Courtesy of: http://www.aicr.org